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The Rodent That Acts Like a Hippo

Although the animals that live in rainforests on different continents can differ significantly, the environments they live in are very similar. These environments, therefore, exert similar pressures on the evolution of the animals living in each. As a result, unrelated species may be similar in many ways. This phenomenon is called convergent evolution, or
convergence. For example, the toucans...

classification

In making comparisons, resemblances resulting from
convergence must be considered. Whales and bony fishes, for example, have similar body shapes for the same function—progression through water; their internal features, however, are widely different. In this case, the
convergence is evident because of the large number of characters that link whales to other mammals and not to the fishes...

comparison to analogy

In many cases analogous structures, or analogues, tend to become similar in appearance by a process termed
convergence. An example is the
convergence of the streamlined form in the bodies of squid, shark, seal, porpoise, penguin, and ichthyosaur, animals of diverse ancestry. Physiological processes and behaviour patterns may also exhibit analogous
convergence. Egg-guarding behaviour in the...

development in evolution

Features that become more rather than less similar through independent evolution are said to be convergent. Convergence is often associated with similarity of function, as in the evolution of wings in birds, bats, and flies. The shark (a fish) and the dolphin (a mammal) are much alike in external morphology; their similarities are due to
convergence, since they have evolved independently as...

alpine flora

...in Hawaii, Java, and the Himalayas. This emergence of the same characteristic among different species that are under the same environmental pressures on different continents is an example of convergent evolution.

angiosperms

...to grow, flat, green, leaflike structures called cladodes develop in the axils of the scale leaves. The presence of cladodes in unrelated desert angiosperm families is an excellent example of convergent evolution, or the independent development of the same characteristic in unrelated taxa.

cephalopods

...there are only a limited number of ways that images can be produced, it is not surprising that some of them have been “discovered” more than once. This has led to numerous examples of
convergence in the evolutionary history of eyes. The similarity in optical design of the eyes of fish and cephalopod mollusks, such as octopuses and squid, is perhaps the most well-known example, but...

falconiforms

Among present-day species, convergent evolution has led to the development of similar traits among different falconiforms. For instance, in Australia, buzzards (
Buteo) are absent, but certain large kites have evolved to fit this ecological niche. In South America the buzzardlike harpy eagle represents a climax of one line of evolution filled in the Old World by large booted...

mammals

The structural and behavioral parallels with placental mammals are sometimes quite striking. Such resemblances are examples of convergent evolution—a tendency for organisms to adapt in similar ways to similar habitats. Thus, there are marsupials that look remarkably like moles, shrews, squirrels, mice, dogs, and hyenas. Others are the ecological counterparts, less in structure than in...

swifts and hummingbirds

...of the air; both swifts and hummingbirds are agile fliers and share, in this connection, some peculiarities of wing structure. Some ornithologists believe that these anatomical resemblances are convergent (the result of the same type of natural selection acting on unrelated organisms) and that the true relationships of hummingbirds and swifts lie with other groups, not with each other.

geographic mosaic theory

Unrelated species living in similar physical environments often are shaped by natural selection to have comparable morphological, physiological, or life history characteristics; they are said to evolve convergently. Convergence is a common feature of evolution and has major effects on the organization of biological...

morphological change

...conditions. As a result, animals only remotely related evolutionarily may come to resemble each other superficially because of common adaptations to similar environments, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution. Structural similarities—streamlined shape, dorsal fins, tail fins, and flipper-like forelimbs and hindlimbs, for example—have evolved in such varied animal groups as...